Comments on: In Which I Run Around Like a Headless Chook

By: Nif

Nif — Mon, 01 Jun 2009 15:20:04 +0000

I got Liar at BEA and I just have to say

I LOVED YOUR UNRELIABLE NARRATOR!

(Eats 4 exclamation points and sits in the corner to calm down.)

When I was in 9th grade my English teacher asked us what we thought the most beautiful word in English was. I said, “Extension.” Fortunately, he liked me and I got one.

I don’t have a favorite word, but long, cool, or obscure words do tend to roll around in my head. I particularly like the Latin names of plants, as an anchor and a guide through the shifting messy mass of common names. (I’m a pretty passionate gardener.)

By: Amber

Amber — Sun, 31 May 2009 01:56:02 +0000

As long as it’s a well-written book, I’ll take any narrator. (Well-written to me includes but is not limited to: flowing well (not choppy), has good pacing, developed characters, a nice balance of showing and telling, a solid storyline, interesting passages, …)
I don’t think you want to hear about my worst food experience. It involves a lot of throwing up.
I don’t know what my favorite word is. It is currently too late for me to think well and am therefore resorted to using much too simple words such as “it”.

By: bookwormchris

bookwormchris — Fri, 29 May 2009 01:39:51 +0000

1) Unreliable narrators can be fine. I guess it depends on how unreliable they are and how it is all done. If I like the story, I’ll spend the time figuring out (or trying to figure out) what is really going on.

2) I have issues with most seafood. Or at least my body does. It isn’t enjoyable when the gag reflex kicks in. I’m usually fine with canned tuna (dolphin?) for some reason, but not a whole lot else can get past my mouth. (Ants in my favorite cereal weren’t so bad, I just pretended they were something else and tried not to look at what I was eating.)

3) Favorite word? Hard to say. Maybe suasion because I didn’t know it existed until a year or so ago. Although, carminative is amusing, especially in the context of Crome Yellow, where I first discovered it.

By: Aimee

Aimee — Fri, 29 May 2009 00:24:00 +0000

I like a well-done unreliable narrator but I’m very suggestible and can be won over to just about any of my literary pet peeves if they’re done well (most recently, I decided novels where the protagonist is a writer are not so bad after all when I read Carol Shields’ Unless). Unreliable narrators are fantastic because they require re-reading.

By: tess

tess — Thu, 28 May 2009 23:44:03 +0000

1) I love unreliable narrators. I admittedly haven’t read much where every single thing the protagonist says is under suspect, but most of my favourite characters are at least a little unreliable. Honest characters never seem to make for good reading.

2) I ate a burger from the ferry. It was a little gross, but, you know, ferry food, all good. Six hours later, I proceeded to puke my guts out. Puke and puke and puke, and just when I thought I couldn’t anymore, I took a sip of ginger ale and realized that I could. Much more. I can’t eat burgers anymore. Even the smell makes me sick.

3) Sitzpinkler! German, slang for wimp, literally ‘a man who sits to pee’. I love John Green.

By: Amy Fiske

Amy Fiske — Thu, 28 May 2009 23:43:27 +0000

I love unreliable narrators! Especially in the hands of a good writer. (Pretty much anything in the hands of a bad writer is…well…just bad.)So, waiting eagerly for your book.

By: Werner von Purple

Werner von Purple — Thu, 28 May 2009 23:28:04 +0000

callipygous

By: Cristina

Cristina — Thu, 28 May 2009 23:26:55 +0000

1. I like unreliable narrators, there are moments when they sort of frustrate me because part of my brain wishes to get all the answers at once, but it’s often the uncertainty that keeps reading.

2. A couple of years ago SOMEONE decided it would be funny to give me a CRICKET taco, which I innocently ate before realizing what it actually was.

3. Currently the word is “gracious” which my friends and I incorrectly use instead of “thank you” for the Spanish word “gracias”. According to us, it sounds fancier that way…

By: Joey-la

Joey-la — Thu, 28 May 2009 23:20:30 +0000

I’d say it has been done before – but a family friend of mine (in my company) ate a HUGE blob of wasabi thinking it was avacado (I think that is spelled wrong).

I find unreliable narrators interesting and fun – they keep you guessing!

I’m in english class and meant to be doing work, so I won’t tell you about my (many) horrible food experiences oops… I should be working

By: Jenn

Jenn — Thu, 28 May 2009 22:22:07 +0000

Reading comments above, I also like hippopotomonstrosesquipedaliaphobia. Fun to say, no one knows what it means usually, and is ironic in the same way that tridecaphobia is.

By: Jenn

Jenn — Thu, 28 May 2009 22:16:05 +0000

Unreliable narrators just make you think. It depends on my mood whether or not I’ll read books with them.
The worst has happened a couple times, when it comes to food. I’m an extremely picky eater. One time I drank some bad milk. It kind of tasted like chocolate milk, and then I was like, wait a second, and it was kind of flakey. Ew. Also, plain yogurt disgusts me. One time I went to a frozen yogurt place and was like, yum, frozen yogurt. Except their yogurt was actually frozen yogurt, not the stuff that tastes like ice cream. I took a nice big bite and spit it right back out. And one time when my twin sister was seven, we were at a family party and she grabbed a clear glass of what she thought was her apple juice, but it was actually brandy. She spit it out all over the floor!
My favorite words are phenolphthalein (fee-nol-THAY-leen) and carcinogen. Phenolphthalein because it has five consonants in a row and changes to a very pretty pink color in neutral solution (it’s an acid-base indicator used in titrations), and carcinogen because it sounds very daunting (and is very daunting).

By: Emmy

Emmy — Thu, 28 May 2009 20:56:36 +0000

I don’t read much with unreliable narrators, but it sounds interesting and I’m really looking forward to Liar. I trust that you will be able to do it well.

I’m a picky eater, so I have lots of bad food experiences, but one interesting one was the time my sister gave me cold tea and told me it was apple juice.

Hippopotomonstrosesquipedaliaphobia – just for the irony.

By: Katherine

Katherine — Thu, 28 May 2009 20:51:50 +0000

1. I don’t particularly care one way or the other, they’re simply subject to my main rule: If the protagonist annoys the crap out of my, I’m likely to stop reading.

2. My favorite burger at my favorite restaurant ordered medium and taking a bite that was so charred that it was all I could taste and wanting to throw up. Yeck.

3. Trebuchet. It’s an amazing word to say. I also like Xenophobe. The way my mouth moves to say them just pleases me. Saying some words just feels like savoring a delicious food.

By: Julia Rios

Julia Rios — Thu, 28 May 2009 19:59:58 +0000

Once I poured salt all over my pizza, thinking I’d reached for the Parmesan cheese. It was… not edible.

I like the combination of diaphanous gown. It starts all fluttery and then gets big and round, as if the object itself were billowing out of your mouth.

By: Electric Landlady

Electric Landlady — Thu, 28 May 2009 19:41:10 +0000

I used to hate unreliable narrators, and then I read a book where the concept just clicked for me. (I believe it was Bucket Nut by Liza Cody.) I finally got what the narrative purpose of the unreliable narrator was, and that really helped. Now I like ‘em a lot, with the usual caveats about they have to be well done, etc.

By: Adrienne Vrettos

Adrienne Vrettos — Thu, 28 May 2009 18:22:43 +0000

-I think with unreliable narrators there’s a sort of honor among thieves; you are (sometimes?) able to figure out certain topics that they are always, always honest about. Of course, then it’s all the more infuriating/exhilerating when you find out there is no honor they are just great big liar faces.

-Two gross food experiences come to mind, both cases of mistaken identity, both from childhood. First, I though it was peanut butter I had paired with jelly. But it was mayonnaise. Second, I thought it would be milk I was sipping, but it was orange juice.

-Sluice

By: caitlin

caitlin — Thu, 28 May 2009 18:16:19 +0000

I like unreliable narrators. I really hate being able to predict how a book is going to turn out. That was one huge reason I liked Liar so much and couldn’t stop reading until I’d finished around 2amish. Worst food experience? Does opening a wee packet of salt and having the salt spurt into your eyes count? Speaking of food one of my fave words — garbanzo because it’s so fun to say.

By: john cash

john cash — Thu, 28 May 2009 17:29:03 +0000

Unreliable narrators give you a very good picture of what they think is going on, and a great look inside their heads. Great for character, not so much so for plot — unless you can find a way for them to indicate what is “really” going on while they tell you what they think is going on. Like in “Catch-22.”

Worst food experience was my first taste of plain yogurt. I love yogurt nowadays. Funniest was eating former-East-German “chicken curry,” which was grilled chicken and potatoes plus some curry sauce.

Favortie word: “gyümölcsök” (Hungarian, means “green-groceries”), close tie with “yclept” (Middle English, past participle of “to be named”). In modern English: cellar-door.

By: Stephanie

Stephanie — Thu, 28 May 2009 16:27:46 +0000

I do love the word milksop.

By: El

El — Thu, 28 May 2009 16:13:33 +0000

Patrick–

just think about the phrase “running around like a headless ….”, fill in the usual word if you’re an American (she said, hoping she’s narrating reliably), and you’ve got “chook.”

Unreliable narrators–

As long as I know when they’re being unreliable by the end of the story, no prob. It’s when I haven’t a clue what’s really going on that I have a problem. Although I can imagine books in which it mostly doesn’t matter which parts are unreliable. Just so long as I don’t end up feeling cheated at the end, I’m good with it.

By: Steve Buchheit

Steve Buchheit — Thu, 28 May 2009 16:02:49 +0000

Unreliable narrators are fab, when they’re done well and work for the story. The ones like most are “magicians” who get the reader thinking about the unimportant hand, even though you’re seeing them work the magic with the other hand, the distraction is more important. The other type that works well for me is the ones that start off with saying, “I’m a liar” and then makes it a game to find the lies.

On the flip side, this is the type of narrative voice that can fall flat quickly. If the reader feels they are being intentionally kept away from the story, or that important parts are happening but we’re not being shown them, the unreliable narrator gets tossed.

I think it’s like making your villains loveable. We have to enjoy the narrator, and over look their faults. Intentionally hiding something until the last minute to make a plot point work breaks that.

Most unpleasant food experience was having my brother cook steaks. Really try to avoid that.

And my favorite word at the moment is “wack-a-loon.”

By: Talulah

Talulah — Thu, 28 May 2009 15:53:15 +0000

1.) I dislike them because I can be incredibly lazy and I don’t *like* having to question everything that I’m being told. Which is ironic, given the way I rip into nonfiction. Maybe I just want to give my critical thinking skills a break? I dunno. However! Sometimes I think that unreliable narrators are unreliable in ways that are simply UNFAIR. I recently read a book where the narrator was unreliable in small ways–particularly in instances of “good taste”–and that annoyed the CRAP OUT OF ME. Mostly because it was set in the 1600s, and since I’m not exactly an expert on Restoration England, how was *I* supposed to know what was considered tacky?! I didn’t figure it out until the afterword, and man, did I feel dumb.
2.) Without a doubt, developing the stomach flu right after I’d eaten cheese sticks. For years afterwards, even the *smell* of cheese sticks made me want to hurl.
3.) Currently, it’s “gauche.” God, I love the word “gauche.”

By: Devon

Devon — Thu, 28 May 2009 15:38:42 +0000

Hey, I read that one where the narrator randomly is pregnant and doesn’t know why–I was like, wtf? And then the big reveal explanation at the end wasn’t even all that satisfying (to me, at least). But normally I really like unreliable narrators, especially in YA books. I’m reading The Fat Girl by Marilyn Sachs to my 10th grade class, and it’s been fun to watch them slowly figure out that Jeff has a warped perception of his relationships.

By: Karen Bass

Karen Bass — Thu, 28 May 2009 15:29:54 +0000

Well done is the key to any narrator. Liar doesn’t worry me in the least since your title certainly forewarns the reader.

Worst food experience: As a child I accidentally poured hard sauce (for carrot pudding) on my mashed potatoes. Same colour. My dad made me eat the potatoes anyway.

Favourite word: gargoyle. I love the way it flirts with being onomatopoeic, the sound of water gushing from the statue’s mouth.

By: Jaya Lakshmi

Jaya Lakshmi — Thu, 28 May 2009 15:07:03 +0000

As long as a story is done well and you like the protagonist enough, their reliability can be debated.
There was a lot of controversy over Lolita mainly because the narrator Humbert is unreliable but gifted with words. But some people have admitted that it’s their favorite book, mainly because of the language.